Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE

Teaching Ancient Philosophy

Author: John Sellars

Journal Title: PRS-LTSN Journal

ISSN:

ISSN-L:

Volume: 2

Number: 2

Start page: 23

End page: 49

Return to vol. 2 no. 2 index page

1. Introduction

In what follows I present some of the results of a research project I have recently undertaken for the Philosophy and Religious Studies subject centre of the Learning and Teaching Support Network (PRSLTSN). This project has been principally concerned with pedagogical issues specific to the teaching of ancient philosophy. Central to it has been a survey of the existing scholarship devoted to teaching ancient philosophy and a review of the currently available teaching resources, in the form of textbooks and online material. As well as this print article, further results of this work may be found at the ‘Teaching Ancient Philosophy’ website via the address http://www.ancientphilosophy.org.uk

2. What is ‘Ancient Philosophy’?

For the purposes of this study I shall use the phrase ‘ancient philosophy’ to refer to the philosophy of the ancient Mediterranean world, written in either Greek or Latin, between the dates 585 BC (Thales’ famous prediction of an eclipse) and AD 529 (Justinian’s closure of the last philosophical schools in Athens).1 Within this period I shall use ‘Greek philosophy’ to refer to philosophy from the first Presocratics through to Aristotle; ‘Hellenistic philosophy’ to refer to philosophy during the period of the Hellenistic Empires (i.e. c. 330—30 BC) and also in first two centuries AD; and ‘Late Ancient philosophy’ to refer to philosophy from c. AD 200 to the end of antiquity (i.e. Plotinus, the later Neoplatonists, and Augustine). In philosophy departments the teaching of ancient philosophy has often been confined to Greek philosophy, namely the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. However, these are the products of only the first quarter of this millennium of philosophical history. Here I shall also address the teaching of not only Hellenistic philosophy but also Neoplatonism and later Latin philosophical authors such as Augustine and Boethius. There are, however, more substantial issues surrounding the definition of ancient philosophy beyond mere chronological considerations. One might understand the question ‘what is ancient philosophy?’ as asking ‘how was philosophy conceived in antiquity?’. This latter question is usually closely connected to concerns about how an ancient conception of philosophy might differ from conceptions of the nature and function of the modern academic subject. Some modern scholars of ancient philosophy have been keen to point out the argumentative nature of ancient philosophy and the characteristics that it shares with modern Anglo-American academic philosophy, as if it were necessary to make an apologia for continuing to read ancient philosophical texts.2 Others have been more concerned to draw attention to the differences between ancient and modern philosophy, paying attention to the ‘existential’ dimension of the ancient philosophical life.3 However, broad definitions of ‘ancient philosophy’ rarely manage to encompass the diverse range of practices characterised as ‘philosophical’ during the course of such a long period of time. Ancient philosophy included scientific (the Presocratics, Aristotle), argumentative (the dialogues of Plato and Cicero), scholastic (late Aristotelian Commentators), therapeutic (Epictetus, Sextus Empiricus), reverential (Epicureans, late Pythagoreans), mystical (late Neoplatonism), and politically revolutionary (Sophists, Socrates of the Apology) dimensions at various times and in various combinations. Any attempt to capture all of these aspects of ancient philosophy under a single umbrella definition is, I suspect, likely to fail.

Nevertheless, it may be helpful to be sensitive to these sorts of questions in order to have at least some framework within which one might approach one’s teaching of ancient philosophy. Such metaphilosophical questions will inform more specifically pedagogical questions such as ‘of what should an introduction to ancient philosophy consist?’ or ‘what are the most important characteristics of ancient thought of which students should be made aware?’.

3. Teaching the History of Philosophy

Although perhaps obvious, it is important always to bear in mind that ancient philosophy is part of the history of philosophy. With this in mind it should be remembered that just as ‘the philosophy of history’ is a philosophical investigation into the nature of history, so ‘the history of philosophy’ is an historical investigation into the past of philosophy. While its subject matter is philosophical, its methodological approach is principally historical.4

Some academic philosophers may not have much sympathy with such a claim. For them, the study of the history of philosophy must always be subordinated to contemporary philosophical concerns. ‘One reads Plato only insofar as this might shed light on a current philosophical problem’.5 Yet, as Jonathan Barnes has observed, the problem with such an approach is that, firstly, any serious study of an ancient philosopher will soon involve historical and philological questions, and, secondly, if one’s study is motivated solely by the desire for philosophical inspiration then there is little incentive ‘to get one’s subject right’.6 A balance must surely be struck, then, between philosophy and history. Again, as Barnes has noted, those who read ancient philosophy claiming to have a purely philosophical goal will simply produce poor scholarship, while those who define themselves as historians may think that this absolves them of any need for philosophical insight.7

A course in ancient philosophy should do more than simply report who said what when. It should stimulate students to reflect for themselves on the philosophical issues explored by their antique forebears. But that should not allow philosophy teachers to deny the essentially historical nature of such a course or to neglect the need for a sensitivity to historical and philological issues that the subject matter deserves. However, a sensitivity to historical issues need not limit one to a dry report of the ideas of past masters. In fact, one would expect such sensitivity to lead one to pay due attention to the often vigorous philosophical debates from antiquity, such as those between the Stoa and the Sceptical Academy. Moreover, a historically sensitive approach would, for instance, place the ideas of Plato and Aristotle within the broader philosophical context out of which they grew. It would also pay attention not just to what they said but also to why they said it and to the philosophical problems that provoked their ideas. In sum, teaching ancient philosophy historically need not mean teaching it unphilosophically.

Indeed, Ofelia Schutte has suggested that a historically orientated course in philosophy may often provide a better stimulus to critical thinking than a ‘contemporary problems’ orientated course.8 Students who follow the latter, she reports, often fail to develop any real critical distance from their own cultural presuppositions and the debate of the ‘real philosophical issues’ tends to take place within the confines of the students’ own cultural context. Students come with their pre-existing opinions, repeat them, and search the contemporary literature for arguments to justify them. By contrast, students who follow a historical introduction to philosophy begin to develop a historical awareness and a certain critical distance from their own culture. One obvious example relevant here is Plato’s anti-democratic political philosophy in the Republic and the way in which this calls into question current widespread assumption (in the liberal West) that democracy is the only credible political system.9 Thus one could make an argument for the claim that a course in the history of philosophy (ancient or otherwise) offers a better philosophical education than a course devoted to ‘contemporary philosophical problems’.

4. The Interdisciplinary Nature of Ancient Philosophy

There is, then, a balance that must be struck between doing history and doing philosophy. But ancient philosophy is not only an episode in the history of philosophy; it is also part of the culture of the classical world and so also part of the study of Classics. It is, I hope, generally agreed that the best contemporary research in ancient philosophy is interdisciplinary, by which I mean that it is sensitive to both classical and philosophical questions, and draws upon the resources of both disciplines.10 Should ancient philosophy teaching also be interdisciplinary? Should philosophy students bother themselves with information about a thinker’s historical and cultural context? Should they be made aware of textual problems such as variant readings in different manuscripts or the processes by which texts have been transmitted from antiquity? Or should they read modern translations of Aristotle in plain wrappers, so to speak, as if they are no different to the works of, say, Kant or Davidson? I suspect that some philosophers will prefer this latter approach, focusing as it does solely upon the philosophical arguments of an ancient author and free from the risk of falling into either a sterile history of who said what when or a painstaking philological analysis that is unable to see the wood for the trees.11

However, the principal problem with such an approach is that it will tend to assess ancient philosophical ideas and arguments from a modern perspective. It will apply current criteria regarding what should and should not be considered ‘philosophical’. It will be unlikely to pay attention to the way in which philosophy was conceived in antiquity and how ancient conceptions of philosophy might differ from our own. For instance, the Stoic philosopher Euphrates of Tyre does not appear to have produced any original ideas of his own and yet was praised by his contemporaries as one of the most famous philosophers of his day.12 By modern standards he is of slight philosophical standing, but he was clearly assessed according to quite different standards in antiquity. Euphrates is a particularly obscure example, but the general point is worth bearing in mind, especially when considering the role played by the ‘schools’ in ancient philosophy. In sum, one needs to pay attention to the cultural and intellectual context in which ancient philosophical texts were produced. Is it fair to dismiss Cicero as a serious philosopher in his own right because he did not create his own philosophical system comparable to that of Plato? Was this ever Cicero’s intention? Would that have been part of what it meant to be ‘a philosopher’ at the time that Cicero wrote? I do not want to claim definitive answers to these questions, but I do want to suggest that these sorts of questions should be addressed.13 In order to do this one must pay attention to more than simply the ‘modern’ arguments that can be extracted from the surviving philosophical texts.

As well as ancient conceptions of philosophy, one must also be sensitive to wider issues relating to ancient culture that are properly the domain of the Classicist. Some teachers of the history of modern philosophy have acknowledged that it is necessary to pay attention to the historical context within which philosophical ideas were formed.14 This is even more important when teaching ancient philosophy given the greater temporal and cultural distance that exists between the subject matter and modern readers.15 In particular, Hollibert Phillips has suggested that while it may be legitimate for more advanced courses to focus upon a close reading of a text and a careful analysis of its arguments, in an introductory course it may be equally legitimate to pay due attention to the cultural context in which the philosophical material under discussion was produced.16

Beyond such cultural and historical issues, there are also philological matters that should be taken into account. Students needs to be made aware of the nature of the texts with which they are dealing and the processes by which they have come down to modern readers. In an appendix to the volume Philosophie grecque entitled ‘Ce qu’il faut savoir avant d’aborder l’étude de la pensée antique’ (‘What it is necessary to know before one begins the study of ancient thought’), Monique Canto- Sperber and Luc Brisson outline a whole range of textual issues of which they suggest the student of ancient philosophy should be aware.17 These include the circulation of texts in antiquity, papyrology, doxography, the medieval transmission of manuscripts, the evaluation of variant readings, and a beginner’s guide to understanding the typical critical apparatus that one might find in an Oxford, Teubner, or Budé text. Although there is clearly room for debate concerning just how soon such issues should be introduced to students, I take it that it is generally agreed that a familiarity with all of these issues is essential to more advanced study (i.e. at doctoral level). As Étienne Gilson has commented, before one can assess the value of the philosophical arguments of a pre-modern author, one must first determine what that author actually wrote, which are the best manuscripts, which are the most probable textual readings, and what the author is most likely to have meant by what they wrote.18 Only then can the philosophical conversation begin. While undergraduate students of philosophy are hardly to be expected to undertake such philological work themselves, they should at least be made aware of the necessity and value of such work.

5. Introducing Classical Languages

The typical philosophy student is unlikely to arrive at university with any great familiarity with Greek or Latin, although there may, of course, be exceptions.19 Some philosophy students may study the subject in combination with Classics and benefit from a formal introduction to these languages. However, it is probably fair to assume that the majority of philosophy students who study ancient philosophy have little or no knowledge of the languages in which ancient philosophical texts are written.

To what extent, if any, should the teacher of ancient philosophy address this issue? One school of thought assumes that exposure to, say, Greek within the context of a philosophy course will simply confuse and intimidate students who may well already be somewhat confused and intimidated. More and more publications in the field make use of transliteration as authors (or publishers?) assume that using the Greek alphabet will make their work inaccessible to a substantial number of potential readers. Some classical scholars working in the field lament this trend, but then follow it themselves.

I suggest that teachers of ancient philosophy should not be afraid to introduce their students to classical languages where it may be relevant to do so. At a minimum I propose that all students of ancient philosophy should be expected to learn, or at least become familiar, with the Greek alphabet. After all, if a student is capable enough to secure a university place and to write an essay on, say, Aristotle’s form-matter distinction, then they should have no difficulty in learning two dozen letters, many of which differ little from their English counterparts.20 A student who has mastered the Greek alphabet will be able to navigate through secondary literature that does not employ transliteration, will be less intimidated (and hopefully more curious) when they come across extended passages of Greek (in, say, ‘Kirk, Raven, & Schofield’ or a Loeb volume), and will be able to use a lexicon to look up the occasional technical term.21 For those who might plan to continue at graduate level, such a rudimentary knowledge will at least form some foundation for the language skills that they will need to acquire in order to do graduate research.22

It is hoped that those students who want to continue studying ancient philosophy will also want to learn more about the classical languages. An early exposure to the Greek alphabet will certainly be of benefit here. If some students do want to learn more it may be possible to direct them to a formal course in a Classics department, if there is one locally. However, even where there is, this would be a significant addition to the student’s workload, especially if taken in addition to a full compliment of philosophy courses. Perhaps a better alternative is to direct students to resources where they can learn more about Classical languages at their own pace and according to their own need and interest. There are a number of ‘teach yourself’ books that are designed for private study; one recent volume that I would recommend is Peter Jones’ Learn Ancient Greek.23 This volume assumes no prior knowledge and covers a good amount of ground in twenty short chapters. One could even arrange an informal and optional course for those interested, taking a chapter a week during one academic year. As with many of these sorts of books, the volume also contains a summary of grammar and a basic vocabulary list, making it a useful basic reference work as well. It is no doubt optimistic to expect that large numbers of philosophy students will want to learn ancient Greek in their spare time. But those who become particularly interested in ancient philosophy and want to pursue it further may well want to learn more about the languages in which ancient philosophical texts are written. My principal suggestion here is that students should at least be made aware of this as a possibility. One might be surprised by how many do express an interest.24

I have focused here on Greek. This is not only because it is the dominant philosophical language of antiquity but also because it poses the most problems. Students do not need to transliterate Latin in order to be able to look up a technical term in a Latin dictionary, for instance. Again, I suggest that teachers should not be afraid of exposing students to Latin terminology where relevant and encouraging them to learn more about the language. So long as it is made clear that it is not a course requirement to learn these languages, then the whole process can remain motivated solely by curiosity and interest as these languages are first introduced.

By way of postscript, it is also worth noting that while a classics student may enjoy the study of ancient languages for its own sake, the ancient philosophy student may have a more instrumentalist approach. Here the latter may share something in common with students of the New Testament. Both the theology student reading the Gospels and the philosophy student reading Plato are not primarily linguists and probably approach the study of Greek as merely a means to an ends. Teachers of New Testament Greek have produced a number of resources for students of Greek whose principal academic concerns are not with the language itself.25 Indeed, some of the best online resources for Greek beginners have been produced with New Testament students in mind.26 Both teachers and students of ancient philosophy may benefit from consulting such material.

6. Bringing the Past to Life

It is easy for the teacher long familiar with ancient philosophy to forget that the subject matter of their courses may initially appear quite alien to students new to the subject. We are, after all, dealing with foreign names from an alien culture long past. One of the tasks of the ancient philosophy teacher is to try to bring some of these distant figures back to life in the imagination of one’s students. There are a number of seemingly trivial, yet I think effective, ways in which this may be achieved. The use of maps, images of statues and busts, and archaeological findings can all help to add colour and form to the foreign names on the page.27 Similarly, students are often fascinated by the process by which ancient texts have come down to us. A brief introduction to the transmission of ancient texts, perhaps including images of manuscripts and papyri, can help not only to capture their imagination but also to introduce them to some of the sorts of problems involved in the editing of a classical text.28 It may also serve to emphasise the highly contingent nature of the surviving record for ancient philosophy. One could, for instance, note that Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things and Epictetus’ Discourses both appear to have survived the Middle Ages via only a single copy, while other texts such as Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens and Epicurus’ On Nature have only been discovered more recently in papyri from Egypt and Herculaneum. Reference to the recent Empedocles find, published for the first time in 1999, will serve to emphasise that the body of surviving evidence for ancient philosophy is far from static.29

Looking at images of manuscripts and papyri, busts and archaeological sites, may not contribute directly to a student’s understanding of ancient philosophy, but they may well help to bring to life ancient philosophers and ancient texts in a way that will encourage students to explore the subject further.

7. Links between Ancient and Modern Philosophy

Some students of philosophy may not be as attracted as others to the prospect of reading ancient philosophical texts. Their assumption is often that such texts are unlikely to have much relevance to the living philosophical issues of the contemporary scene. One way to counteract this assumption is to draw attention to the way in which a wide range of modern philosophers have been drawn to and commented upon ancient philosophers.

In a course on the Presocratics, for instance, one might mention the uses to which these early philosophers have been put in works by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Popper.30 A class devoted to Socrates could also consider relevant works by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.31 In a course on Plato, one might make reference to Popper again, this time along with Derrida.32 Lectures on Aristotle’s ethics might benefit from a discussion of MacIntyre or Williams,33 while those on Hellenistic philosophy could include reference to Foucault’s later works and perhaps also the work of Charles Taylor.34 These sorts of connections may do much to show the sceptical student that a knowledge of ancient philosophy is essential if one wants to understand the work of a whole series of modern philosophers, both ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’, and the debates to which they have contributed.

8. Other Strategies

The wider pedagogical literature includes a number of suggestions regarding the use of non-philosophical texts with students new to the academic study of philosophy. In particular, a number of authors have suggested that the use of media already familiar to students—novels and films especially—may help students engage with philosophical material that otherwise would appear forbidding and inaccessible.35 Some may have doubts about the excessive use of such material in the classroom. Nevertheless the use of these sorts of materials may well be the most effective way to engage new students who would gain little from being thrown into the deep end by, say, reading Aristotle’s Categories on ‘day one’. In sum, it is probably simply a question of determining the most appropriate strategy for a particular group.

Such an approach has been employed with regard to ancient philosophy by William Stephens, who reports considerable success.36 In a course devoted to Stoicism, students supplemented their reading of Epictetus and Seneca by reading Tom Wolfe’s novel A Man in Full and watching Ridley Scott’s film Gladiator.37 Assigned readings for the course began with sections of A Man in Full, gently supplemented with extracts from Epictetus as the course progressed, and only later being replaced by extended readings from Epictetus and Seneca. For Stephens, the objective behind this pedagogical strategy was not only to make use of materials culturally familiar to his students but also to consider the influence of Stoicism on contemporary culture. This enabled students to see the continuing relevance of the ancient texts that they were studying. But perhaps most importantly of all, it offered students who had never read ancient philosophical texts before a gentle introduction to the subject matter of the course before being exposed to the primary sources.

Obviously the quantity of material in these popular media directly relevant to the study of ancient philosophy is extremely limited. But it may be worth noting that two films have been made devoted to the life and death of Socrates; Socrate (1970), directed by Roberto Rossellini, and Barefoot in Athens (1966), starring Peter Ustinov.38

9. Courses in Ancient Philosophy

a) Guthrie versus Hadot
When a department of philosophy offers an ‘Introduction to Ancient Philosophy’ course the syllabus usually begins with the earliest Presocratics, touches upon the Sophists, devotes most of its attention to Plato, and then concludes with a survey of Aristotle. No doubt this claim, like all generalisations, is subject to numerous exceptions and objections. Nevertheless it forms a reasonable point of departure. This is, for instance, the approach embodied in the Hackett anthology Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle.39 I shall call this ‘the Guthrie approach’, as its syllabus corresponds to the material covered in Guthrie’s magisterial six-volume history of Greek philosophy.40 I have no intention to criticise either this approach or the masterly work of the individual whose name I shall use to refer to it. However, in what follows I shall attempt to propose a number of other approaches that might stand alongside ‘the Guthrie approach’ as equally worthy models for courses in ancient philosophy.

Perhaps the clearest alternative to ‘the Guthrie approach’ may be found in the works of the French scholar Pierre Hadot. In one of his more recent works—What is Ancient Philosophy?—what I shall call ‘the Hadot approach’ finds its clearest expression.41 Here, Hadot begins his account of ancient philosophy not with the earliest Presocratics but rather with Socrates. For Hadot, it is with Socrates and his immediate disciples that the concept of ‘philosophy’ first appears. Although Plato and Aristotle receive due attention, their philosophies are placed within the wider context of the other Hellenistic schools and the narrative continues into Neoplatonism and early Christian thought. Perhaps more significantly, whereas ‘the Guthrie approach’ tends to focus upon epistemological and metaphysical themes, ‘the Hadot approach’ places ethical themes centre-stage in the form of the ideal of the philosophical life.

While both of these approaches are equally justified, ‘the Hadot approach’ may appeal more to those who want to introduce Hellenistic philosophy to students. It also has the advantage of a unifying theme— the Socratic question ‘how should one live?’—that a number of teachers have reported to be especially appealing to students.42

b) Thematic Approaches
Despite their differences, the ‘Guthrie’ and ‘Hadot’ approaches both follow a broadly chronological approach. An alternative approach can be found in two recent anthologies, both of which arrange their material thematically rather than chronologically. These are Terence Irwin’s Classical Philosophy and Julia Annas’ Voices of Ancient Philosophy.43 Annas modestly notes at the end of her volume that “Irwin’s book is more comprehensive and less introductory than this one”.44 Irwin’s volume is indeed impressive, but some teachers may prefer Annas’ book insofar as it generally offers extended excerpts rather than brief quotations and the commentary is less obtrusive. In Irwin’s book it is easy to find oneself reading more of Irwin than of the primary sources. Thus the two volumes embody slightly different approaches and in certain respects Annas’ may be more flexible as a textbook.

Alternatively, one might prefer to follow a suggestion made by Priscilla Sakezles, who outlines a thematic approach to ancient philosophy that focuses upon just one philosophical problem.45 Sakezles’ own course focuses upon the debate between Stoics and Peripatetics concerning fate and responsibility. Following Sakezles’ lead, it is possible to outline a number of thematically orientated courses in ancient philosophy. Consider, for instance, the following suggestions: Fate, Freewill, and Responsibility. As I have already noted, Sakezles has outlined a course devoted to the debate between Stoics and Peripatetics concerning fate and responsibility.46 Beyond the texts that she suggests, one might also like to consider Cicero’s On Fate, Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On Fate, and Plotinus’ On Providence (= Enneads 3.2 and 3.3).47 Annas and Irwin offer further selections.48

Ancient Epistemology. This is an especially rich topic upon which to focus. The most obvious material can be found in Plato’s response to Protagorean relativism, and later scepticism, both Academic and Pyrrhonic. Then there are the various replies to scepticism by Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans. Key texts would include Plato’s Theaetetus and Cicero’s Academics, among others. Further suggestions can be found in the collection of essays by Everson.49

Ancient Philosophy of Science. This is closely related to the last topic and could perhaps be combined with it. Obvious places to begin might be Karl Popper’s work on the origins of science in the Presocratics, Aristotle’s reflections on scientific method in the Physics and elsewhere, and Galen’s essays on the status of medical expertise.50

Ancient Physics. The study of nature is a recurrent theme in ancient thought. Beyond the natural philosophy of the earlier Presocratics, relevant material may be found in Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and the Stoics. Key texts might include Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle’s Physics, Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus, and Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods. Irwin offers some further material.51

Ancient Philosophy of Religion. There are a number of different approaches that one could take to ‘ancient philosophy of religion’. One could focus upon ancient arguments concerning the existence of the traditional pagan gods, one could examine more theoretical accounts of God as first principle made by ancient philosophers, or one could look at material in the early Church Fathers more akin to recent philosophy of religion. Perhaps a combination of these approaches could be used. Relevant texts would include the fragments of Critias’ Sisyphus, Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods, and a whole range of texts by Augustine.52 Irwin offers further material.53

Ancient Philosophy of Mind. Although some might find this phrase somewhat anachronistic, it is nevertheless helpful when referring to ancient theories concerning the nature of the psyche. In fact, I borrow this phrase from Annas’ study Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind.54 The material covered by Annas in this volume may well be a good place to begin. Platonic and Aristotelian psychology are also fertile ground, with Aristotle’s On the Soul being an obvious text to include. A helpful collection of essays edited by Everson may also be of use.55

The Good Life. A number of contributors to the existing pedagogical literature have noted that students are often drawn to Socrates in the Apology because his concern is not with some obscure technical philosophical problem but rather the more fundamental question ‘how should one live?’.56 Moreover, I have already noted that for Hadot this is perhaps the most important philosophical topic in antiquity. Drawing upon this student enthusiasm and Hadot’s groundwork one could easily construct a course orientated by this theme, drawing upon texts such as Plato’s Apology, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Epicurus’ Letter to Menoeceus, Epictetus’ Handbook, and Cicero’s On Ends. Annas offers some further suggestions.57

Ancient Political Philosophy. There are a number of anthologies devoted to ancient political philosophy.58 The most obvious texts are, of course, Plato’s Republic, Statesman, Laws, and Aristotle’s Politics. But note also Cicero’s Republic and Laws, Augustine’s political writings, as well as the fragments of the Sophists.

These are just some of the more obvious ways in which one might construct a course in ancient philosophy orientated by a particular philosophical theme or topic. No doubt there are other possibilities. Whether a course restricted to a single philosophical topic would be adequate as a general introduction to ancient philosophy is another matter. But at intermediate or advanced levels this sort of approach might prove very effective.

c) Beyond Aristotle
At the outset of this section I made reference to what I call the ‘Guthrie’ approach. Although a perfectly reasonable way to structure a course on ancient philosophy, one drawback is that it neglects those ancient philosophers who came after Aristotle. The increase in scholarly interest in Hellenistic and Late Ancient philosophy during the last three decades or so is beginning to percolate down into the classroom, but only slowly. A number of the approaches that I have touched upon already involve Post-Aristotelian material but it may be helpful to address this issue directly here.

Hellenistic Philosophy. Hellenistic philosophy is now well served by two collections of fragments in translation: Inwood and Gerson’s Hellenistic Philosophy and the first volume of Long and Sedley’s The Hellenistic Philosophers.59 Alternatively one could structure an introduction to all three Hellenistic schools around a close study of one of Cicero’s dialogues (see below). For an ancient sourcebook, one could read Books 7, 9, and 10 of Diogenes Laertius (all in the second volume of the ‘Loeb Classical Library’ edition). Sharples’ recent introduction offers a thematic guide to the philosophical topics of this period.60

Roman Philosophy. Traditionally, very few scholars have claimed that the Romans made any significant contribution to philosophy. However, more recent studies have attempted to challenge (or at least qualify) this claim. According to the ancient sources, philosophy was introduced to the Romans by the famous embassy of three Athenian philosophers in 155 BC, and this forms a natural point of departure for a course devoted to Roman philosophy. It might be appropriate for such a course to concentrate upon Latin philosophical works, including those of Cicero, Lucretius, and Seneca. However, one might prefer to extend the story to include works by Philodemus, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. A recent collection of essays and an introductory survey may prove useful.61

Philosophy at the End of Antiquity. The works of Augustine form one of the largest body of philosophical texts to survive from antiquity. Alan Perreiah has argued eloquently that Augustine’s Confessions form a ideal text with which to introduce students to medieval philosophy.62 He also acknowledges that in order to understand Augustine one must also be familiar with a number of earlier ancient philosophical movements, including Neoplatonism, Stoicism, and the work of Cicero.63 Thus a course built around the Confessions, looking both backwards and forwards, might offer a prefect bridge between the study of ancient and medieval philosophy. A similar argument could perhaps be made for Boethius, equally dependent on the Neoplatonic and Stoic traditions and equally influential in the Middle Ages. The Consolation of Philosophy offers itself as an equally readable text around which such a course might be constructed.

The Commentators. Under the direction of Richard Sorabji, the vast corpus of late antique commentaries on Aristotle are currently being translated into English for the first time. From the numerous volumes that have been published to date, materials will be extracted in order to form three sourcebooks under the common title The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD: A Sourcebook. The three volumes will be dedicated to ‘Psychology’, ‘Physics’, and ‘Logic and Metaphysics’. Although not yet available (due 2003), these are likely to be useful textbooks for intermediate or advanced courses. They may perhaps be most useful when adopting one of the thematic approaches outlined above.

d) Major Texts
When one thinks of ‘major texts’, worthy of a course to themselves, perhaps the most obvious candidates are Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. While these two works certainly do merit detailed study, they are by no means the only ancient philosophical works to deserve close attention in the classroom. Consider, for instance, the following:
Cicero. A number of Cicero’s philosophical dialogues offer excellent introductions to the philosophical debates current in the Hellenistic period. Although there exist useful anthologies of texts for Hellenistic philosophy, these have certain drawbacks when used as textbooks. Perhaps the most obvious of these is the somewhat disjointed portrait that students receive from reading a large number of short extracts from a wide variety of ancient authors. By contrast, many of Cicero’s philosophical works offer a unified dialogue centred around a single philosophical topic. This literary unity and philosophical focus make these texts easier for students to work with, compared to an anthology of short quotations taken from a wide range of otherwise unknown authors.64 Of these philosophical works I suggest that four stand out as texts worthy of detailed study: Academics, On Ends, On the Nature of the Gods, and Tusculan Disputations (all produced within a single year, 45 BC).65 Each of these texts offers a thematic dialogue between characters from different philosophical schools who argue for opposing positions and raise objections to each other’s claims. A course built around any one of these texts will, of course, need to introduce the relevant protagonists (Stoics, Epicureans, Academic Sceptics, Antiochus) and so will also function as a general introduction to Hellenistic philosophy. However, that introduction will remain orientated by the philosophical topics central in the chosen dialogue.

Sextus Empiricus.The Outlines of Pyrrhonism is a philosophical text of some importance and Sextus’ works formed a vital influence on early modern philosophy.66 Book One of the Outlines introduces the sceptical method, placing it within the context of Pyrrhonism’s primarily ethical orientation. Books Two and Three consider the opinions of the ‘dogmatists’ in the three domains of logic, physics, and ethics. The Stoics are Sextus’ principal targets here, but other dogmatists also figure in the discussion. A course centred around the Outlines would need to introduce not only the origins of scepticism (Academic and Pyrrhonic) but also the dogmatists to whom Sextus is opposed. Thus a course centred around the Outlines would also form an introduction to Hellenistic philosophy in general. An excellent annotated translation by Annas and Barnes exists (under the title Outlines of Scepticism) and this has recently been reprinted in the series ‘Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy’.67

Plotinus. The surviving works of Plotinus probably constitute the most important body of Greek philosophical texts to survive beyond those of Plato and Aristotle. 68Moreover, these texts come in the form of relatively brief essays or ‘tractates’, each with its own philosophical theme. As such they may well be ideal texts to use in the classroom. In general, there are two approaches one might use: teach the philosophy of Plotinus via selections of Enneads, or select particular Enneads for use within a thematically orientated course.

e) Multicultural Ancient Philosophy
A number of contributors to the existing pedagogical research have explored ways in which it might be possible to make courses in philosophy—usually the history of early modern philosophy—more multicultural.69 One of the pedagogical reasons behind this is to make the subject matter more accessible to an increasingly diverse student population. For these authors, the history of philosophy as it is usually taught is a story exclusively about ‘dead white European males’.

A history of Greek and Roman philosophy might run the risk of appearing to be such a story, despite the ethnic diversity of the ancient Mediterranean world. One could simply draw attention to the Middle Eastern origins of many a Hellenistic philosopher—Diogenes of Babylon, for example—or that, for instance, Augustine was by birth an African. A more unusual departure might be to preface a course on early Greek philosophy with an account of Near Eastern and Egyptian thought. Indeed, Jay Lampert has taught a course devoted to ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek philosophy in equal measure, as well as a course devoted entirely to ancient Egyptian philosophy.70 At the other end of the chronological spectrum, one might do well to pay attention to transmission of ancient philosophy into the Islamic world. One way in which Arabic authors might be incorporated into an undergraduate course on ancient philosophy is by making use of the texts and commentaries by al-Farabi or Averroes when teaching Plato and Aristotle.71 Such material may also be relevant to a course on Neoplatonism, given the Neoplatonic flavour of much of Islamic philosophy. While both of these suggestions involve stretching the— albeit arbitrary—chronological boundaries laid out at the outset of this article, it may in some circumstances be worth doing so if it helps to engage students who might otherwise remain only marginally interested in the material at hand.

f) A Note on Plato
Plato is, as we all know, one of the most important philosophers ever to have lived, to whom the history of Western philosophy is famously but a series of footnotes.72 To study philosophy seriously will involve, at some point, becoming acquainted with the Platonic dialogues. Thus it is only natural that he should figure heavily in courses devoted to ancient philosophy. Having said that, however, one might argue that an excessive focus upon Plato may have a number of detrimental effects. Firstly, devoting a large amount of time to Plato in the context of an introductory course will deny time to other ancient philosophers and so perhaps fail to convey the range and diversity within ancient philosophy. For instance, a course that devotes, say, a quarter or half of its time to reading the Republic but then ignores Hellenistic philosophy altogether due to ‘lack of time’ will not give students a balanced introduction to the subject. Plato’s Republic is no doubt a very important text and certainly one that deserves close study, but a similar argument could equally be made for Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Plotinus’ Enneads, and a number of other ancient texts. Rather than devote a substantial portion of one’s time to this one text, perhaps it might be more appropriate to save this for a separate ‘major text’ course.73

Secondly, an introductory course that devotes a substantial amount of time to a text such as the Republic will inevitably devote much of its philosophical energy towards understanding issues arising from Plato’s idealism. For some students—especially those brought up in an increasingly secular and scientific culture—Plato’s philosophy may have little appeal and an excessive focus upon it may put them off ancient philosophy altogether. However, these same students may find Stoic or Epicurean materialism more congenial. A course that includes all of these competing philosophical positions is more likely to offer something that will capture the interest of everyone in the class. Without wanting to diminish either the philosophical or historical importance of Plato, one could advance these sorts of scholarly and pedagogical arguments against an excessive focus upon his works, at least in an introductory course. Rather than teach the Republic at length, one could instead focus upon one of Plato’s shorter dialogues, such as the Protagoras or Euthyphro.74 These would give a good taste of Plato’s intellectual and literary genius, while leaving time for plenty of non- Platonic material as well.

10. Teaching Resources

a) Books
The most important teaching resources are, of course, books. These fall into three categories: translations of individual works, anthologies of translated texts, and introductory secondary literature suitable for reading lists. The range of material available to the teacher of ancient philosophy has exploded in recent years (simply note the number of items on the bibliography of textbooks below published since 1995). There are now a considerable number of anthologies, translations, and introductory studies produced by some of the leading scholars in the subject. I have already noted, for instance, the two thematic anthologies by Irwin and Annas. The bibliography included at the end of this article lists a range of readily available volumes that may be worth considering before issuing one’s next reading list. A number of comparative reviews are available at the ‘Teaching Ancient Philosophy’ website.

b)The Internet
There are also an increasing number of online resources, including texts, language aids, and encyclopedia entries, among others. Many of these are included in the collection of online recourses in the ‘Teaching Ancient Philosophy’ website. However, a number of these deserve special mention here.

A variety of ancient philosophy electronic texts are available online. Although these are rarely an adequate substitute for a printed edition, nevertheless students may find it useful to be able to download for free the complete works of Plato and Aristotle in English, enabling them to refer to passages perhaps not included in the specified course books and perhaps in heavy demand at the library. Two sites worth mentioning are the Greek Philosophy Archive and the MIT Internet Classics Archive, both of which supply out of copyright translations of the principal ancient philosophical authors (Jowett for Plato, Ross for Aristotle, MacKenna for Plotinus).75 A third, and significantly more impressive source for texts, is the Perseus Project, where students can find texts by Plato and Aristotle in both English and Greek, jump between the English and Greek at any point in the text, jump to passages by using Stephanus or Bekker references, and look up Greek words via hyperlinks to an online version of Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon.76 The Greek texts are available in transliteration or in Greek font. Two sources of online encyclopedia articles are The Internet Encycopedia of Philosophy and the Stanford Encycopedia of Philosophy.77 The former already contains a number of helpful articles devoted to ancient philosophy and more are on their way. It looks set to become a very useful resource. The latter has, to date, fewer articles available but looks set to become a significant work of reference. Contributions are, in general, invited from established scholars and forthcoming contributions will include Richard Kraut on Plato, Anthony Long on Epictetus, David Sedley on Lucretius, and Lloyd Gerson on Plotinus. It may well be worth checking the Stanford Table of Contents occasionally to watch its progression. Also worthy of note is the MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, based at the University of St Andrews, which includes entries on a number of ancient philosophers and scientists not represented elsewhere.78

These are but a few of the wide range of online resources available. Other sites worthy of note include The Archelogos Project, offering detailed commentaries on works by Plato and Aristotle by a number of well-known scholars in the field, and The Last Days of Socrates, a site “designed to help first year philosophy students read the Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and the death scene from the Phaedo”.79 These and many other sites are all listed at the ‘Teaching Ancient Philosophy’ website http://www.ancientphilosophy.org.uk

11. In Conclusion

I have attempted to offer a fairly full survey of both pedagogical issues relevant to the teaching of ancient philosophy and approaches that one might adopt when teaching ancient philosophy. The problem with such a wide survey is that teachers of ancient philosophy vary considerably, from those who are acknowledged experts in the field, to those whose own research interests lie elsewhere but are obliged to teach it as part of a broader introduction to the history of philosophy. Contexts will also vary with regard to institution, department, and degree schemes. No doubt some of my comments will be obvious to some and too specific to be of help to others. Nevertheless I hope that all of those who teach ancient philosophy will have found something here of interest.

12. Bibliography of Prospective Textbooks

I close with a bibliography of prospective textbooks currently readily available in the UK, focusing upon anthologies of texts and general introductions. I make no claims to completeness and I have not attempted to list all of the translations of individual works or secondary literature on individual philosophers currently in print. Comparative reviews of some of these volumes may be found at the ‘Teaching Ancient Philosophy’ website. Ackrill, J. L., ed., A New Aristotle Reader (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)
Annas, J., Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)
Annas, J., Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
Annas, J., ed., Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
Barnes, J., ed., Early Greek Philosophy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987)
Cohen, S. M., P. CURD, & C. D. C. REEVE, eds, Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle, 2nd edn (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000)
Curd, P. ed., A Presocratics Reader (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996)
Gagarin, M., & P. Woodruff, eds, Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
Gill, C. Greek Thought, Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics 25 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)
Gregory, J., ed., The Neoplatonists: A Reader, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 1999)
Guthrie, W. K. C., The Greek Philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle (London: Routledge, [1950] 1989)
Inwood, B., & L. P. Gerson, eds, Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, 2nd edn (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997)
Irwin, T., Classical Thought, A History of Western Philosophy 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989)
Irwin, T., & G. Fine, eds, Aristotle: Introductory Readings (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996)
Irwin, T., ed., Classical Philosophy, Oxford Readers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)
Kirk, G. S., J. E. Raven, & M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)
Lesher, J. H., ed., The Greek Philosophers: Selected Greek Texts from the Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1998)
Long, A. A., Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, 2nd edn (London: Duckworth, 1986)
Long, A. A., & D. N. Sedley, eds, The Hellenistic Philosophers, Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary, Volume 2: Greek and Latin Texts with Notes and Bibliography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)
McKirahan, R. D., ed., Philosophy Before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994)
Morford, M., The Roman Philosophers: From the Time of Cato the Censor to the Death of Marcus Aurelius (London: Routledge, 2002)
Sharples, R. W., Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics: An Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1996)
Waterfield, R., ed., The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)

Endnotes

  1. As Jonathan Barnes notes (Early Greek Philosophy [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987], p. 9), although an oversimplification, these dates offer a convenient pair of boundaries for the history of ancient philosophy. Some scholars of medieval philosophy date the beginning of their period to the conversion of Constantine to Christianity in AD 312 (see e. g. D. Luscombe, Medieval Thought [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997], p. 2).Thus there is a something of an overlap between the end of ‘ancient philosophy’ and the beginning of ‘medieval philosophy’.
  2. See e.g. J. Annas, Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
  3. See e.g. P. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, ed. A. I. Davidson, trans. M. Chase (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
  4. See the discussions in É. Gilson, History of Philosophy and Philosophical Education, Aquinas Lecture 1947 Fall (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1948), esp. pp. 24-34; H.Phillips, ‘Special Problems in the Teaching of Modern Philosophy’, Teaching Philosophy 13/3 (1990), 217-26; R. A. Watson, ‘What is the History of Philosophy and Why is it Important?’, Journal of the History of Philosophy 40/4 (2002), 525-28.
  5. See e.g. the account in C. Cowley, ‘Cultivating Transferable Skills in Philosophy Undergraduates’, PRS-LTSN Journal 1/1 (2001), 39-51, at p. 40: “The ancient philosophers may be studied as a closed and dusty history of who said what when; but the normal approach in the English-speaking world is to see the [ancient] author in question as suggesting something […] here and now as if he were a colleague”.
  6. See J. Barnes, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. xvi-xviii. Note also Gilson, History of Philosophy and Philosophical Education, pp. 30-34.
  7. See Barnes, The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, p. xviii, n. 5.
  8. See O. Schutte, ‘Overcoming Ethnocentrism in the Philosophy Classroom’, Teaching Philosophy 8/2 (1985), 137-44, esp. pp. 141-42.
  9. A similar point is made by R. Talaska, ‘Philosophical Reasoning in Ethics and the Use of the History of Philosophy’, Teaching Philosophy 20/2 (1997), 121-41.
  10. For a spirited discussion of the differences between ‘classical’ and ‘philosophical’ readers of ancient philosophical texts see J. Glucker, ‘Critical Study’ (a review article on the first two volumes of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy), Philosophia: Philosophical Quarterly of Israel 16 (1986), 389-436.
  11. See e.g. Cowley, ‘Cultivating Transferable Skills in Philosophy Undergraduates’.
  12. See M. Frede, ‘Euphrates of Tyre’, in R. Sorabji, ed., Aristotle and After (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1997), pp. 1-11.
  13. By way of a preliminary answer to these questions, it should be noted that it was with the Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century that the notion of ‘originality’ took centre stage in such assessments. In antiquity it appears that one could be a well respected philosopher without necessarily being an original thinker. The obsessions with originality and creativity appear to be very much post-romantic concerns.
  14. See H. Phillips, ‘Special Problems in the Teaching of Modern Philosophy’; J. J. McDermott, ‘The Teaching of Philosophy – Historically’, in T. Kasachkoff, ed., In the Socratic Tradition: Essays on Teaching Philosophy (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp.169-80.
  15. See e.g. M. Beard & J. Henderson, Classics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1995] 2000), esp. pp. 6-8, who define the study of ‘Classics’ as, in part, an exploration of this cultural distance between antiquity and ourselves.
  16. See Phillips, ‘Special Problems in the Teaching of Modern Philosophy’.
  17. See M. Canto-Sperber et al., Philosophie grecque (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997), pp. 781-826. This volume is published in the PUF series ‘Collection Premier Cycle’ and so is aimed at first and second year undergraduates in France.
  18. See Gilson, History of Philosophy and Philosophical Education, p. 30.
  19. However, the current political drive to expand access to Higher Education in the UK is likely to reduce the size of the proportion of those who are familiar with these languages even further. This should not necessarily be lamented, but it should be borne in mind by those who teach ancient texts.
  20. It should be noted that teachers of logic do not hesitate to give their students a whole host of unusual symbols to learn during an introductory course.
  21. For further discussion of the gradual introduction of Greek terms when teaching texts in translation see J. Parker, ‘Teaching with KeyWords’, HCA-LTSN Briefing Paper No. 5, available as a PDF file at http://hca.ltsn.ac.uk/resources/Briefing_Papers/bp5.php
  22. For discussion of the necessity of mastery of ancient languages for the serious study of ancient philosophy see Glucker, ‘Critical Study’, esp. pp. 434-36.
  23. P. Jones, Learn Ancient Greek (London: Duckworth, 1998).
  24. For those who do, J. H. Lesher, The Greek Philosophers: Selected Greek Texts from the Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1998) offers a selection of short extracts in Greek with a close commentary designed to aid the beginner. Indeed, this volume might form an excellent introductory reader for philosophy students learning Greek for the first time.
  25. See e.g. J. McLarty, ‘How to Cheat in Koine Greek’, PRS-LTSN Journal 1/2 (2002), 169-75. This article includes details of a number of useful online resources.
  26. See e.g. the NT Gateway at http://www.ntgateway.com/greek/learning.htm
  27. For one such suggestion along these lines see R. S. Brumbaugh & J. P. Burnham, ‘Coins and Classical Philosophy’, Teaching Philosophy 12/3 (1989), 243-55.
  28. I have already noted the appendix in Canto-Sperber et al., Philosophie grecque. A good guide to the transmission of ancient texts is L. D. Reynolds & N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968). The POxy website based at Oxford includes images of a wide range of philosophical finds (at http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/POxy/). A good general introduction to papyrology is E. G. Turner, Greek Papyri: An Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).
  29. See A. Martin & O. Primavesi, L’Empédocle de Strasbourg (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1999). However, for some doubts about the value of such finds see C. Osborne, ‘Rummaging in the Recycling Bins of Upper Egypt’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 18 (2000), 329-56.
  30. See F. Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. M. Cowan (Washington: Regnery, 1962); M. Heidegger, Early Greek Thinking, trans. D. Farrell Krell & F. A. Capuzzi (New York: Harper & Row, 1975); K. R. Popper, ‘Back to the Presocratics’, now reprinted in The World of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 7-32.
  31. See S. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates, trans. H. V. & E. H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); F. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. S. Whiteside (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993).
  32. See K. R. Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies: 1 The Spell of Plato (London: Routledge, 1945); J. Derrida, ‘Plato’s Pharmacy’, in Dissemination, trans. B. Johnson (London: Athlone, 1981), pp. 61-171.
  33. See A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (London: Duckworth, 1981); B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontana, 1985).
  34. See M. Foucault, The Care of the Self: The History of Sexuality 3, trans. R Hurley (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988); C. Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
  35. See e.g. L. S. Bowlden, ‘‘They Read Novels, Don’t They?’ Using Novels in Teaching Philosophy’, Teaching Philosophy 13/4 (1990), 359-64; E. V. Torisky Jr, ‘Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun: Literature in the Philosophy Classroom’, Teaching Philosophy 23/3 (2000), 255-68.
  36. I would like to thank Dr Stephens for discussing his experiences with me.
  37. For full details visit http://puffin.creighton.edu/phil/Stephens/HRS-PHL-403-Honors- Stoicism.htm
  38. See J. Solomon, The Ancient World in the Cinema (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 42. Rossellini’s Socrate is currently available on an Italian issue DVD with English subtitles (Istituto Luce, 2002).
  39. See S. M. Cohen, P. Curd, & C. D. C. Reeve, eds, Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle, 2nd edn (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000). A similar plan is followed in J. H. Lesher, The Greek Philosophers
  40. See W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962-81). Note also his brief guide to the same material, The Greek Philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle (London: Routledge, [1950] 1997).
  41. See P. Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, trans. M. Chase (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), a translation of Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? (Paris: Gallimard, 1995).
  42. A number of contributors to Teaching Philosophy have reported that students new to philosophy are particularly drawn to the figure of Socrates as he is presented in Plato’s Apology. A major factor in this appeal is that Socrates addresses the question ‘how should one live?’ instead of the sorts of abstract technical questions that often dominate in contemporary academic philosophy. See e.g. J. D. Harrison, ‘Keeping it Alive’, Teaching Philosophy 8/3 (1985), 201-06; P. McKee, ‘Philosophy and Wisdom’, Teaching Philosophy 13/4 (1990), 325-30.
  43. See T. Irwin, ed., Classical Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); J. Annas, ed., Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
  44. Annas, Voices of Ancient Philosophy, p. 454.
  45. See P. K. Sakezles, ‘Bringing Ancient Philosophy to Life: Teaching Aristotelian and Stoic Theories of Responsibility’, Teaching Philosophy 20/1 (1997), 1-17. A number of other authors have outlined the benefits of course based around a single philosophical problem, although usually with reference to the history of modern philosophy; see e.g. V. A. White, ‘The Single-Issue Introduction to Philosophy’, Teaching Philosophy 13/1 (1990), 13-19; V. A. White & J. A. Chern, ‘Teaching Introductory Philosophy - A Restricted Topical Approach’, in T. Kasachkoff, ed., In the Socratic Tradition: Essays on Teaching Philosophy (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp. 21-28; A. Perovich, ‘A Comprehensive and Comprehensible Survey of Modern Philosophy’, Teaching Philosophy 13/3 (1990), 227-31.
  46. See P. K. Sakezles, ‘Bringing Ancient Philosophy to Life’.
  47. For details of textbook editions of Plotinus see n. 68 below. Among these, Enneads 3.2 and 3.3 only appear in the Penguin abridged edition of MacKenna’s translation.
  48. See Annas, Voices of Ancient Philosophy, § 1 ‘Fate and Freedom’; Irwin, Classical Philosophy, § 9 ‘Free Will’.
  49. See S. Everson, ed., Epistemology, Companions to Ancient Thought 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). See also Annas, Voices of Ancient Philosophy, § 3 ‘Knowledge, Belief, and Skepticism’; Irwin, Classical Philosophy, §§ 3-5 & 7.
  50. See K. R. Popper, The World of Parmenides: Essays on the Presocratic Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 1998); R. Walzer & M. Frede, Galen, Three Treatises on the Nature of Science (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985).
  51. See Irwin, Classical Philosophy, §§ 2 & 6. Note also the following studies: S. Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956); M. R. Wright, Cosmology in Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1995).
  52. See V. J. Bourke, ed., The Essential Augustine (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1974), § 2 ‘Faith and Reason’.
  53. See Irwin, Classical Philosophy, § 15 ‘Philosophy and Theology’. Note also the following studies: A. B. Drachmann, Atheism in Pagan Antiquity (Chicago: Ares, [1922] 1977); W. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1947); L. P. Gerson, God and Greek Philosophy: Studies in the Early History of Natural Theology (London: Routledge, 1990).
  54. See J. Annas, Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).
  55. See S. Everson, ed., Psychology, Companions to Ancient Thought 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
  56. See e.g. J. D. Harrison, ‘Keeping it Alive’; P. McKee, ‘Philosophy and Wisdom’.
  57. See Annas, Voices of Ancient Philosophy, § 5 ‘How Should You Live?’.
  58. See M. Gagarin & P. Woodruff, eds, Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); P. J. Steinberger, ed., Readings in Classical Political Thought (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000). Note also Annas, Voices of Ancient Philosophy, § 6 ‘Society and the State’; Irwin, Classical Philosophy, § 14 ‘Political Theory’.
  59. See B. Inwood & L. P. Gerson, eds, Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, 2nd edn (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997); A. A. Long & D. N. Sedley, eds, The Hellenistic Philosophers, Volume 1: Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
  60. See R. W. Sharples, Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics: An Introduction to Hellenistic Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1996).
  61. See M. Griffin & J. Barnes, eds, Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); M. Morford, The Roman Philosophers: From the Time of Cato the Censor to the Death of Marcus Aurelius (London: Routledge, 2002). Note also an older study: M. L. Clarke, The Roman Mind: Studies in the History of Thought from Cicero to Marcus Aurelius (London: Cohen & West, 1956).
  62. See A. Perreiah, ‘St. Augustine’s Confessions: A Preface to Medieval Philosophy’, Teaching Philosophy 12/1 (1989), 13-21.
  63. Similarly J. J. McDermott, ‘The Teaching of Philosophy—Historically’, p. 171: “To study Augustine intelligently, one must know Manichaeanism, Plato, Plotinus and the Greek and Roman Stoics. The philosophy of the High Middle Ages—of Scotus Erigena, Anselm, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, and even Ockham—requires a knowledge of the thought of Augustine”.
  64. This may be especially true of beginner students. Obviously more advanced students (at MA level, for instance) should have no problem addressing questions of doxography.
  65. Recent translations suitable as set texts include J. Annas & R. Woolf, Cicero, On Moral Ends, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); P. G. Walsh, Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). For Academics and Tusculan Disputations one must turn to the Loeb Classical Library editions. Teachers will also want to note editions of these texts with commentaries that may be of use when preparing lectures: T. W. Dougan & R. M. Henry, M. Tulli Ciceronis Tusculanarum Disputationum Libri Quinque, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905-34); W. M. L. Hutchinson, M. Tullii Ciceronis De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum Libri Quinque (London: Edward Arnold, 1909); A. S. Pease, M. Tulli Ciceronis De Natura Deorum, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955-58); J. S. Reid, M. Tulli Ciceronis Academica (London: Macmillan, 1885)
  66. See R. H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).
  67. See J. Annas & J. Barnes, Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism, Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1994] 2000).
  68. For teaching purposes there are currently three inexpensive paperback collections: Plotinus, The Enneads, ed. J. Dillon, trans. S. MacKenna (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991); E. O’Brien, The Essential Plotinus (Indianapolis: Hackett, [1964] 1997); J. Gregory, The Neoplatonists: A Reader (London: Routledge, [1991] 1999). The first of these is probably the most useful. For a complete text in English one must turn to the Loeb Classical Library edition by A. H. Armstrong. Note also J. Dillon & L. P. Gerson, eds, Neoplatonism: Introductory Readings (Indianapolis: Hackett), forthcoming.
  69. For further discussion and references see J. Sellars, ‘Some Reflections on Recent Philosophy Teaching Scholarship’, PRS-LTSN Journal 2/1 (2002), 110-27, esp. 113-15.
  70. See J. Lampert, ‘Teaching Ancient Egyptian Philosophy’, The American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy 95/1 (1995), available on-line at http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/ archive/newsletters/v95n1/teaching.asp This article includes a full course outline and details for prospective textbooks. The author suggests that initially it is not necessary to know Hieroglyphics in order to teach such a course, although obviously it would be useful to gain at least some familiarity with the language.
  71. A number of such works are available in English translation, including Averroes’ Commentary on Plato’s Republic, ed. & trans. E. I. J. Rosenthal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), Averroes’ Middle Commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione, trans. C. E. Butterworth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), and al-Farabi’s Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, trans. M. Mahdi (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, [1962] 2001). For further references see S. H. Nasr & O. Leaman, eds, History of Islamic Philosophy, Routledge History of World Philosophies 1 (London: Routledge, 1996).
  72. This well-known phrase by Alfred North Whitehead comes from Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: The Free Press, [1929] 1978), p. 39.
  73. For an example of what an introduction to ancient philosophy might look like where Plato is reduced to but one name among many see Hadot’s What is Ancient Philosophy?.
  74. Indeed, M. Glouberman, ‘Euthyphro: A Guide for Analytic Instruction’, Teaching Philosophy 15/1 (1992), 33-49, has argued that the Euthyphro forms an excellent introduction to philosophy and to modern analytic philosophical method.
  75. http://graduate.gradsch.uga.edu/archive/Greek.html and http://classics.mit.edu/
  76. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/
  77. http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/ and http://plato.stanford.edu/
  78. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/
  79. http://www.archelogos.com/ and http://socrates.clarke.edu/

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